Paper Authors

Anoop Desai
Georgia Southern University

Dr. Anoop Desai received his BS degree in Production Engineering from the University of Bombay in 1999, and MS and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering from The University of Cincinnati in 2002 and 2006. His main research interests are in Product Lifecycle Management, Design for the Environment, Total Quality Management including tools for Six Sigma and Ergonomics.

Jean-Claude Thomassian
State University of New York, Maritime College

Dr. Jean-Claude Thomassian received his BS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toledo in 1992 and 1993, respectively, and MS and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from The University of Toledo in 1995 and 2002. His main professional interests are in mixed mode IC design and electrical engineering education; his recent research activity concentrates on symbolic analysis of circuits and MOS models.

Abstract

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

A Novel methodology for engineering course design based on Six
Sigma principles: Incorporation of diverse constituents in course
design
Abstract

This paper seeks to present a systematic and thorough methodology to incorporate basic six
sigma principles for quality into engineering course design from the ground up. Six sigma
principles have been widely used in industry in conjunction with the basic philosophy of ‘lean
thinking’ so as to achieve the twin goals of quality enhancement and cost minimization. The
authors intend to extend an identical thought process to the field of education, beginning at the
basic course level in an engineering setting. The principal advantage of this extension is to
incorporate voices of widely varying stakeholders including the community, industry,
academicians etc into the basic course structure. Another advantage of implementing this thought
process includes rigorous control of instruction quality across a wide spectrum of instructors
thereby infusing much needed objectivity into basic course design. Different Six Sigma tools
such as Quality Function Deployment (QFD), Pareto Analysis etc have been used as appropriate
and a pilot study is presented at the end in order to illustrate practical utility of the methodology.

Introduction

The Six Sigma concept of product design and management has been widely utilized in
commercial enterprises for over two decades now. The basic idea underlying this tenet is
primarily of ‘waste minimization’ as well as of ensuring uniform levels of quality in terms of
product characteristics as well as service characteristics (1, 2, 3, and 4). The concept of ‘Total
Quality Management (TQM)’ is often used synonymously and sometimes in conjunction with
the basic principles of lean engineering and Six Sigma.

It should be noted that while the principles of Six Sigma are generally used in the context of
product design and manufacturing industries, their scope is not merely limited to these two fields
of endeavor. Six sigma principles find much wider scope of expression in other industries as
well. For instance, the service industry such as banking, finance, health services, restaurant
management etc routinely utilize six sigma concepts in order to ensure the availability of quality
products so as to gain and maintain an edge over their competitors (5,6).

While the aforementioned facts are largely understood as well as followed, the authors wish to
point out the fact that there has been very little formally documented research connecting a
formal process of building quality to the field of education. Undergraduate as well as graduate
education is conducted in institutions that are primarily ‘not for profit’ in terms of their formal
tax status. However, as far as quality of the final product is concerned (quality of education
imparted to students, in this context), it should make no difference whether the institution
rendering the service is a ‘for profit’ institution or otherwise.

This paper seeks to extend the practically realizable as well as demonstrable advantages of the
‘six sigma method of reasoning’ to the field of course design. This is meant to be a starting point
in a wider research attempt to finally try and extend this concept to program design.